Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: Sean Mirrsen on September 30, 2016, 04:39:06 am

Quote from: killerhellhound on September 29, 2016, 11:08:23 pm

Solider Reporting for murder duty

((Solider Snaker, is that you? Also huzzah, the soldier lives!))

Prepare for the final day. Have literally a ton of coffee hauled into the workshops. This is gonna be an all-nighter.

Spoiler: Activities (click to show/hide)

((I have decided on names. It's kinda obvious in retrospect. I blame lack of sleep.
The body itself is called "Artax", following its A/RT-ACCS designation. It's the "material component" of the unit, dehumanized and thus most likely to end up in reports and various documentation.
"Atreyu" is the generic proper name for the synthetic intelligent entities, again following the ATREIU designation. This is what you call a synthetic when you don't know his name and don't want to refer to him as an object.
"Reingeist" is the name of the particular military unit we've created here, Atreyu soldiers in Artax bodies. Hopefully simple enough.))

First thing, ask Atreyu Prime for an estimate on how long it will take to distribute the accumulated training between all bodies. This is going to be his entire task for today, accumulating experience and distributing it, preferably the distributing will be done during the nighttime, so that we have the day for training and testing.

Testing and activities to be performed by the Reingeists and assistants today in the available time:

• Thermal endurance - Get a small insulated room, a treadmill for a Reingeist to run on so they generate heat, and some industrial air conditioning units pointing into it. We'll get three environments - one normal, one dry and cold, one humid and hot. Make sure that each set of conditions is accounted for, and the unit performance is adjusted so as to stay within the capacity of the cooling system.
• Visibility - Specifically to thermal sensors, metal-detectors, and radar. An Artax does not have much in terms of conventional metals, but it probably still has a noticeable radar signature. Likewise with thermals, the active cooling it can perform on its surface can reduce its visibility if used correctly. Check how visible an Artax is to these detection methods, and make sure to try out the TOC grenade; how much concealment it provides, how close to the cloud an active Reingeist can be and remain concealed, whether the UV vision mode can penetrate the cloud, those sort of things.
• Variable locomotion and dynamics testing - This is an extension of the practice from yesterday. Check if a Reingeist can carry another (say, disabled; hey, Yorick! Got a job for you!) Reingeist. How much can they carry? Could one lift and carry a civilian car? Tow a bus?
  
  • Practice movement without use of some limbs. It's not unreasonable to expect a leg to get damaged at some point in the testing. Practice using a bipedal stance, rearing up and using the tail for balance - like a velociraptor.
• Practice defensive behavior - it might not come up in testing, but it might be helpful in other ways. Have some assistants dress up in full-body protective armor, to act as scared and confused civilians. Have some guys from security stand as a group some distance away and attempt to "kill" them with rubberized pistol bullets and beanbag shotgun roungs. Can a single Reingeist, in armor but armed only with a sword, interposed between the "killers" and the "civilians", prevent the civilians from being hit by bullets? Can several of them? Start with only one "killer" and one "civilian" and gradually increase the difficulty until the success rate starts dropping off. (Killing Security personnel is heavily discouraged. Rule it so that if the Reingeist moves within a few feet of a shooter, the shooter is considered dead and stops firing. The Reingeist can deflect bullets with more than just the sword, obviously, pretty much all of an Artax is bulletproof.)

The Scientist and any Reingeists not occupied in testing will make sure that armor, ammo, and weapons are all available in sufficient quantities. The plan hinges on whether or not a multi-unit team will be allowed in testing. But in either case, the best way to go about equipment load is using "classes".

• Recon - Equipped with the Sidearms, the Hypersword, and the SAM-Bow. The autocannon is removed in favor of a lower profile, a less cluttered equipment load that won't make much noise, and an increased supply of arrows that would be stored in the "saddlebags" that previously held autocannon ammo. Carries TOC grenades and some regular thrown bladed weapons. Probably using a cut-down version of the armor that does not protect the extremities fully.
• Support - Equipped with the SAM-Bow, the Autocannon, and the Hypersword. Intended to engage from a distance using the long range of its weapons. Arrows for the bow carried in quivers that replace sidearm holsters. Carries TOC and explosive grenades, as well as mostly conventional ammunition that works better at range.
• Assault - Equipped with the Sidearms, the Autocannon, and the Hypersword. Basically maximum firepower. Carries mostly explosive grenades but at least one TOC, as well as a mix favoring superalloy, HATAK, and explosive ammunition.

Once testing is done, The Reingeists split into groups of 8 and get camouflage applied to them. They can probably receive the training update from Atreyu Prime while this is happening. Each group gets camouflage for one of the testing environments - arctic, jungle, and urban. Remember to cover up the cameras with clear film beforehand, and clear out any muffled microphones afterward.
Once the base layer of camo is added, everyone gets to do a bit of personalization. Have every Reingeist choose a specific unique overlay pattern (in the colors of their camo, of course) that get hydrographics'ed onto their face and limbs, thus enabling people to tell them apart without using the stupid-ass name stickers. That's probably going to be the best way for them to differentiate, going forward.

I'm not sure how to read the the production results from yesterday. Assistants produced 1 sword and 1 bow per day, so they made 2 of each so far. The Reingeist A-H squad produced two, is that two of each?  Is that two of each for each of the eight of them? One sword and one bow for each? Basically, how many of each of those do I even have? It might not be important if I can only field one unit per test, but we'll see.

Either way, have at least one bow and sword camo'd in each of the three color patterns.

And as the final act of everything done thus far, attempt to design self-tying shoelaces. With myomers and working off tiny batteries in the aglets. The world will never again be the same.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Synchronization takes probably whole night. And it's not like Company can observe or understand data traffic happening during synch, so you aren't very limited in terms when it can happen.

Tests:
Thermal endurance:
    Normal room temperature: Running without rest requires deployment of radiator wings in a half hour. Electricity running in myomer causes heat rather easily.
    Hot and humid: It's humidity that is more problems than heat itself. Wings are out in five minutes.
    Cold and dry: Wings are remporarily deployed after three hours. It's doubtful Artax have to run so long without breaks, and if enviroment has snow then wings are probably not needed at all.
Visibility:
    Thermal: Artax is regularly exhaling hot air, so cooler the enviroment easier it is to see. Wings can flare quite bright initially before temperature drops. Not thermally visible two meters into TOC cloud, but it seriously shouldn't breath that stuff. Covering radiators in thermally reflective stuff is not very bright idea.
    Magnetics: Superalloy is magnetically as active as block of wood, but electric circuits formed by myomers do generate detectable electromagnetic field. Naturally strength of this field depends of myomer activity. Relaxed myomer is not detectable.
    Radar: Unfortunately rather clearly visible. Superalloy reflects those radar pulses effectively. TOC could naturally helps.
Variable locomotion and dynamics:
    Artax should be able to carry another, but tail, cannon and wings may be annoyingly on the way. How much it can carry depends actually how big it is, something that has not been established yet. We'll go over that part tomorrow.
    Even a human can tow a bus. Human can tow even a damn Boeing 767, so there's no way Artax cannot.
    Artax is not a velociraptor. It is a cat with head and tail of velociraptor. But cats can walk on their hind legs and the tail actually helps acting as a third/fourth limb depending of situation.
Defensive behavior:
    As long as there's only one shooter, Reingeist won't have any problems. Biggest concern is spread of both shooters and civilians. Minimal on both parties means two shooters can semireliably handled, but it gets hard to be in way of three or more projectile paths. Physically impossible even.
   
Armor, ammo and weapons will be available in sufficient quantities, they can be produced without limits before and in between testing rounds. Assuming you don't build large amount of Reingeist's more.

Talking about that, the task was to http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/Themes/darkling/images/bbc/code.gifcreate a supersoldier, not supersoldiers. Notice the singular form. How do you plan to pass a group of Reingeists as one?

The thing about personalized camo produces as many conflicts as there are Reingeists. They all basically have identical mind, so their though process and decision making follows same line, meaning almost everybody ends up with same camo customization plan.

It's two each, so 16. It doesn't particularly matter, because you have a week or two worth of simulated time to build more.

Self-tying shoelaces? Easy.